Couple killed boy 'for being a witch'

A teenage boy was tortured to death by his sister and her partner because they believed he was a witch, a jury found today.

Kristy Bamu, 15, was horrifically killed after a four-day attack of "unspeakable savagery and brutality" by his own family.

His body was discovered with 130 injuries in a blood-soaked flat. He was a victim of the "child witch phenomenon" associated with the Central African form of witchcraft.

Football coach Eric Bikubi and his partner Magalie Bamu were today both found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey.

They were convinced that the schoolboy was possessed by Kindoki. Belief in that type of witchcraft is widespread in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, and among the community of 8,500 in London.

The boy's battered body was discovered on Christmas Day 2010. His face and head were covered in deep cuts and bruises, his ears twisted and two teeth knocked out with a hammer in the family's tower block home in Manor Park.

His father Pierre said in a statement read to the court: "Kristy died in unimaginable circumstances at the hands of people he loved and trusted."

The trial was so harrowing that the judge gave the jury exemption from serving in court again for the rest of their lives.

Of the 101 internal injuries, 35 were caused by sharp objects and 66 by blunt instruments. A screw was found in his bowel. Among torture items police found were pliers, floor tiles, a chisel, bits of wood and knives.

Through days of suffering, Kristy had even appealed to his father on the phone that he would be killed, but his words went unheeded.

Bikubi, 28 - who thought Kristy was possessed and using Kindoki to threaten his family - had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

The Congolese belief has led to tens of thousands of children been thrown on to the streets by their families.

Bikubi was convicted unanimously of murder and Kristy's sister Magalie, also 28, was found guilty of murder by a 10/2 majority after 26 hours of deliberations.

She also took part in some of the attacks and encouraged her boyfriend. She was also convicted of assaulting her sister Kelly Bamu, then aged 20, and a younger sister.

The pair will be sentenced by Judge David Paget, QC, on Monday.

The attacks took place in the cramped eighth-floor flat in December 2010 occupied by the defendants and five siblings who had been sent to London from their home in Paris for Christmas with their elder sister.

Within days of their arrival Bikubi accused Kristy of witchcraft when the teenager wet himself and tried to hide the evidence.

Despite his denial, Bamu joined her boyfriend in the repeated allegations and the attacks began. At one time, as her boyfriend was battering the defenceless Kristy, Bamu was eating pie downstairs.

Bikubi even rang the siblings' father in Paris and passed the phone to Kristy, who told his father that Bikubi did indeed intend to kill him.

But Mr Bamu, who did not believe in Kindoki, had always regarded Bikubi as "pleasant and gentle" and dismissed his son's fears.

Giving evidence in court, he sobbed and told the jury he thought he had sent his children on holiday "not to a torture chamber". The attacks focused on Kristy when his sisters eventually admitted to being sorcerers in order to save themselves from further suffering.

Bamu and Bikubi then turned the siblings against each other.

"In a staggering act of depravity and cruelty they both forced the others to take part in the assaults on Kristy," said prosecutor Brian Altman, QC.

As Kristy suffered greater and greater injuries he begged to be allowed to die. The living room was "awash with blood" which Bikubi ordered the children to clear up. Finally he took Kristy into the bathroom, ran a bath and tried to drown him.

"Kristy was too badly injured and exhausted to resist or to keep his head above the water," said Mr Altman. Bamu dialled 999 and tried to claim that her teenage brother had drowned himself in the bath.

Kristy died from a combination of drowning and the beatings to his head, chest and limbs."

In evidence Bamu claimed she was "very westernised", had been brought up a Christian and did not believe in sorcery.

She said Bikubi had forced her to harm her brother. Asked if she had intended to kill him, she replied: "No, never. He's my brother and I loved him and I could never, ever.

"What I did was because I was forced to and what happened I could not stop."